On 18 October 1944, San Pedro departed with a convoy bound for the initial assault on Leyte in the Philippine Islands. She helped repulse Japanese air attacks beginning on 24 October 1944, shooting down two aircraft before the end of the month. While operations continued ashore, San Pedro escorted resupply convoys between Hollandia and Leyte. On 5 December 1944, a single Japanese plane attacked one of these convoys near Leyte, torpedoed the Liberty shipSS Antoine Saugrain,[3] and escaped by flying through the convoy at masthead height. It then led a companion in for a re-attack and scored a second and fatal hit on the hapless merchant ship. San Pedro rescued 178 survivors and, at the same time, helped repulse a third attack on the sinking ship.

San Pedro was decommissioned on 12 July 1945 at Cold Bay and transferred to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease immediately[1] along with nine of her sister ships, the first group of patrol frigates transferred to the Soviet Navy. Commissioned into the Soviet Navy immediately,[2]San Pedro was designated as a storozhevoi korabl ("escort ship") and renamed EK-5 in Soviet service. On 15 July 1945, EK-5 departed Cold Bay in company with nine of her sister ships – EK-1 (ex-Charlottesville), EK-2 (ex-Long Beach), EK-3 (ex-Belfast), EK-4 (ex-Machias), EK-6 (ex-Glendale), EK-7 (ex-Sandusky), EK-8 (ex-Coronado), EK-9 (ex-Allentown), and EK-10 (ex-Ogden) – bound for Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in the Soviet Union. EK-5 served as a patrol vessel in the Soviet Far East.[6]

Reverting to her former name, San Pedro lay idle until the United States loaned her to Japan on 2 April 1953, and she entered service in the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force as Kaya (PF-8) (かや (PF-8), "torreya nucifera").[8]Kaya was redesignated PF-288 on 1 September 1957.[8] The U.S. Navy struck her from the Navy list on 1 December 1961 and transferred her outright to Japan on 28 August 1962. Later reclassified as an "auxiliary stock craft" and renamed YAC-23,[8] the ship was decommissioned on 1 April 1977, and returned to United States custody on 26 July 1978. She was sunk as a target ship.